Back to campus — again!

“The Eternal Sophomore” visited Buena Vista University last weekend for a special ceremony, and rekindled his love for college life all over Iowa — and beyond.

STORM LAKE, Iowa — It was great to be back at Buena Vista University on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 15, specifically for the naming and dedication of the “Saggau Family Court” at Siebens Fieldhouse, honoring two of BV’s most beloved alums — Bernie Saggau (Class of 1949) and his wife Lois Kretzinger Saggau (’50).

I was there among Saggau family members, co-workers, friends and donors who helped the university make the honor happen.

Bernie Saggau was a 3-sport athlete at BV, a top college basketball referee and for 38 years the executive director of the Iowa High School Athletic Association. He died last spring at 96. My association with him includes having authored the 2005 book “Bernie Saggau & the Iowa Boys: The Centennial History of the Iowa High School Athletic Association.”

The “Saggau Family Court” team on Saturday for the naming and dedication at Buena Vista University.

It was a nostalgic few hours for me being back on campus where I taught and hung out from 1999-2004.

I was reminded that one of the real blessings of my long life and career has been my experiences at colleges in this state — and beyond, for that matter.

“The Eternal Sophomore,” I nicknamed myself more than 50 years ago. It still fits.

This all started at Vanderbilt University, my alma mater in Nashville, Tenn. It took me a couple years to feel really at-home there — among a whole lot of people who seemed smarter, richer and a lot different from me.

But by the time I (barely) graduated in 1969, I didn’t want to leave. I had discovered that one of the best things about being on a college campus is learning all about the differences you have with people around you. A half a century later, I’m still close friends with lots of them.

In 1972, when I became a reporter and, soon, a columnist, for the Des Moines Register, I felt like I had a permit or license to go experience colleges across the state — and write stories about them

I’ll never forget that in the fall of 1979 — a decade after I’d finished college myself — I did a back-to-campus tour of “The Big Four & one more,” as I called the series of columns, with extended visits to the University of Iowa, Iowa State U., UNI and Drake University. And I added a stop at what, back then, was little Dordt College in Sioux Center, as a fun representative of our small colleges.

The family of Bernie and Lois Saggau. Siblings Rebecca and Dr. David Saggau, the children of Bernie and Lois, are second and third from the left.

In the early 1980s, when I noticed that several student governments and other student organizations on our campuses were joining a cheesy national trend of producing and selling picture calendars, maybe there was a “The Co-Eds of Iowa State” or a “Women of Drake.” You get the idea. I popped off in a column, “Where is this going to end — with a ‘Women of Wartburg’ calendar?”

Oh, wow, had I ever stepped in it! Female students, faculty and staff at Wartburg College in Waverly demanded I apologize, which I agreed to do by spending a weekend at Wartburg and taking all the women of all ages there on a date — all at once. I took them to the home wrestling match between Wartburg and arch-rival Luther, explaining to them that “when it comes to Lutheran wrestling, it doesn’t get any bigger than this!”

My colleagues at the Register sent along a gift for all my dates — copies of a cheesy pin-up poster of me, bare-chested, a raccoon coat draped over my shoulders, in a pair of Wartburg College gym shorts. I can’t tell you how many times that poster has re-appeared around the state, pinned up on the wall of some room where I was giving a speech.

Speeches, I did dozens of them on campuses — commencements at Buena Vista, Loras College (twice) and were there others? I spoke about journalism, Iowa history, or Iowa public affairs, to classes at dozens of our campuses.

On my visit to BV, I got to see my Jefferson friends’ Sid and Linda Jones’ grandsons, sophomore Jaden (left) and senior Jackson, play key roles for the Beavers in a victory over Minnesota-Morris. Jaden started at guard and Jackson came off the bench to lead the scoring with 23 points. They were high school stars at Dallas Center-Grimes just northwest of Des Moines. Their dad Adam Jones was one of BV’s all-time best basketball players, a first-team All-American and NCAA DIII Player of the Year in 2002. He now teaches and coaches at Dallas-Center Grimes High.

I became the self-appointed judge of the marching bands at the annual Iowa vs. Iowa State football game. For a half-dozen years, the football rivalry between BV and Loras was called the “Battle for the Saddles,” and I donated a pair of black & white saddle shoes to the winning coach.

By 1990, I’d visited every college — including the main campuses of the community colleges — in Iowa.

About that time, my late wife Carla decided she wanted to finish her long-delayed college studies, graduated at Simpson College, completed her master’s at Iowa State, and taught at both those schools. That meant I was on those campuses often for events.

I decided that life appeared to be so good on campuses — especially small-college campuses — that I came up with what I called “my new life plan.” I’d finish up some projects I had underway at the Des Moines Register then leave; Carla and I would hire-on at one of the small colleges, she’d be a literature professor, and I’d be the old guy who drinks coffee with the students in the mornings in the student center, then keeps the scorebooks in the afternoon at the ball games.

It took 8 years for me to make that “life plan” happen — at least a form of it — first at Loras (just me) and then at BV (Carla, too). (And both schools made me teach a little.)

A new era for men’s basketball at BVU, with Jeff Horner in his first year as head coach. Horner was Iowa’s “Mr. Basketball” in 2002, his senior year at Mason City High School, then was point guard for four years for the Iowa Hawkeyes. After a brief pro career, he was a top prep basketball coach at Valley High in West Des Moines, and had college basketball assistant coaching positions at Grand View University and the University of North Dakota before becoming head coach for seven years at Truman State U in Missouri — and now BVU.

Now, along my college way, I had come to a firm belief that you should not be allowed to graduate from a college until you can sing the fight song, at minimum. I’ve been astounded how many times when I’ve asked college students to sing theirs for me, they’ve said, “Oh, we don’t have one,” or “Never learned it.”

So, as a faculty member, I’ve made it a requirement in each of my courses that before the semester ends, each student must stand individually in front of the class and sing the fight song. I’ve learned the fight songs at Loras, BV and Coe College before teaching there, and sung their songs on the first day of class. I’m proud to say that I was at least partially responsible for revivals of the fight songs at those three schools.

And, at BV, an undergrad Bradley Mariska — a music major, I think — and I became pals after he embraced the fight song when he was a leader of the pep band. He’s now a top high school band director at a large high school just south of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The two of us collaborate as “Doctors of Fight Songs,” and when someone tells one of us their school has no fight song, we volunteer to write one. I generally do the lyrics, which are often corny, and Mariska handles the musical composition, which is always stirring.

We’ve done that for Briar Cliff University and Morningside University in Sioux City and for the PEO’s Cottey College in Missouri. All three have declined official adaptation of our songs, although a lot of PEO members across America have raved about our anthem for Cottey.

So, anyway, imagine my thrill last Saturday here at Buena Vista, I walked into the new hallway at Siebens Fieldhouse and found the new sign pictured here.

Key lines from the BV Fight Song are shown in this sign — the size of a highway billboard — just inside the south door of the Siebens Fieldhouse.

The BV colors indeed seem “brightly streaming” as the Beavers “fight with valor and fight with care,” to borrow a couple other lines from the fight song. “Let us shout it everywhere!”

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